Automatic cheese winders with multiple identical winding stations and a transportation system for supplying the winding stations with spinning cops and for discharging them of empty tubes are known in various embodiments.
One known embodiment relates to automatic cheese winders whose transportation systems have interfaces on the machine end, by way of which spinning cops can be fed into the transportation system and paid-out empty tubes can be removed. The applicable spinning cops are fabricated on preceding textile machines, preferably ring spinning machines, in the production process. They are fed, for instance by means of large-volume shipping containers, to the automatic cheese winders where they are separated by so-called flat round conveyers and are transferred, via cop mounting devices, onto the transport trays of the transportation systems of these automatic cheese winders.
In another known embodiment, the transportation system of the automatic cheese winder is connected, preferably via a so-called converter, to the transport device of the textile machine that produces the spinning cops.
The ring spinning machine and the bobbin winder have special transportation systems, each with machine-specific transport trays for the spinning cops and empty tubes. The spinning cops and empty tubes are transferred from one transportation system to the other transportation system by means of a preferably continuously operating converter as described, for example, in German Patent Publication DE 196 46 337 A1.
To avoid machine down time, the capacities of the connected textile machines, which operate at different speeds, are adapted to one another. In each case, it should be assured that the ring spinning machine, which is substantially slower in its work process and has a disproportionately greater number of work stations, will not have to wait for the bobbin winder.
In order to take into account the differences in the fineness of the yarn produced in a spinning factory, the capacity of the bobbin winder is often selected to be somewhat greater than the capacity of the ring spinning machine connected to it. As a consequence, the bobbin winder has, as a rule, already rewound the supplied spinning cops before the ring spinning machine is doffed again and new spinning cops are available. Until now, the only option in such a case was either to allow the bobbin winder to run empty until new spinning cops arrived, or to simply to shut down the bobbin winder.
Letting the bobbin winder run empty, however, not only means unnecessary energy consumption, but also presents potential problems in the area of the transportation system of the automatic cheese winder since, as a rule, the result is a backup of empty tube-equipped transport trays on the transport paths of the bobbin winder. A backup of transport trays, especially on the tube return path, often leads to blockages in the region of the mouths of the transverse transport paths leading to the winding stations, and these blockages can usually be eliminated only by manual intervention by the operators.
Even the temporary uncontrolled shutoff of the automatic cheese winder if pc delivery is absent can lead to problems. It also has several considerable disadvantages. For example, the yarn is severed at all the winding stations in an uncontrolled shutoff of the automatic cheese winder. Each severed yarn means a loss in quality of the cheese to be completed. Therefore, such unintended yarn cuts should be avoided as much as possible.
An uncontrolled shutoff of the automatic cheese winder also leads to an entirely random distribution of spinning cop- and empty tube-equipped transport trays within the transportation system. When spinning cop delivery resumes, this entirely uncontrolled distribution of the transport trays leads to repeated backups in the area of the mouths of the transverse transport paths. As a rule, each winding station simultaneously discharges one transport tray out onto the tube return path.
There is also the risk that on resumption of spinning cop delivery, problems will arise since in the region of the converter, often there are not enough adequately empty tube-equipped transport trays that can be replaced for new spinning cops at the converter.
As a result, clearing of the Cowemat paths can be delayed. This means that after the ring spinning machine has finished its new spinning cops, the doffing operation cannot immediately ensue since one of its Cowemat paths has still not been completely cleared.
Each stoppage of the ring spinning machine with its large number of work stations (up to 1200 or more spinning spindles) immediately means a considerable drop in production. The uncontrolled shutoff of an automatic cheese winder is not entirely risk-free either. Uncontrolled shutoff requires an even greater overcapacity of the automatic cheese winder as compared to the ring spinning machine.